GORDON'S PAGE
| The Swan.mp3-
Concerto demo.mp3 |
I am a professional musician now in semi retirement after a long & rewarding career for most of my adult life. Like most musical lives it has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, BUT, the positives have far outweighed the negatives & have loved the ride. I feel privelidged to have been involved in music both as a player & teacher, a number of my ex students having gone on to play in major orchestras. Even though I am now out of business on Flute & Saxophone playing due to a tremor developed over the latter years, thanks to those inventive gurus of Wind Synthesizers I can continue to be involved in music with a Yamaha WX5 Wind Midi Controller, a versatile musical instrument with a great future in all the musical idioms.
"NOW" for my Life Story
First a brief on my "Family"
Identical Twin brother "Norman" who also became interested in the arts, he was a fine baritone singer & earnt his living with the Australian Opera for ten years. Then became a household name as an actor in several Television series."Homicide, The Sullivans, Number 96" to name a few & still performs regularly on stage.-------- My Father "Leonard" worked as a signalman in the railways, a really nice man who never raised his voice to my Mother & enjoyed playing the mouth organ & ukulele. --- My Mother "Olive", a very talented woman played the piano for dances & silent movies. Both were very encouraging to us being involved in the arts especially later in life. Apart from the world of music Norman & I became Professional runners & up to now have always been involved in sport of some sort, I still jog most days & run crosscountry races in the winter. Now on to my Musical career which should be at least of interest to those who may have had to jump a few hurdles in there career.
"My Musical Career"
When I was sixteen Mum said "would you like to play Saxophone" & that was the start of a roller coaster ride through life.By the time I was twenty-one I had added a Clarinet & was practicing four hours a day & playing in dance bands several nights a week. I was lucky to have had teachers that encouraged me to read music & practice in an organized way. Fortunately was also taught how to improvise & can remember always carrying a notebook full of hand written chords (concert pitch & no melody) of tunes to gigs so that I could at least play something even if I didn't know the tune very well, so became very comfortable in transposing from chord charts at sight. Even though I could improvise reasonably well I would not have regarded myself as a full on jazz player & probably so now having spent most of my adult life in the Classical world of music, but I get ahead of myself a bit in this tale. Living in Melbourne this was my way of life until I bought a flute at the age of twenty-five, found a flute teacher in "Leslie Barkland" a wonderful man who instilled into me a love of music & a great desire to improve myself, and introduced me to Classical Music which opened up a new exciting musical world. This is when I became serious about practice. At the time I was playing lots of gigs & started using the flute as well in a band on a Melbourne television show but still working in a day job as a photo engraver, I guess those things don't exist now. I left this job & drove a van delivering parcels for a while, when deliveries were done would sit in the van & practice scales & long notes on the flute. SOOooo decided to toss in my day job & practice all day in an organized way. Would start at 9am & practice through to 5pm (mainly Flute) in half hour segments so that I didn't tire too much. Would start with Tone development-long notes & diminuendo's etc.& some Marcel Moyse tone studies, then onto playing all scales & arpeggios (major, minor, dominant 7th, diminished, augmented & 6th) in lots of variations & articulations. Plenty of varied studies followed by putting it all together in repertoire (no point just playing exercises)' this is where I tried to develop & extend my musical capabilities. At this time I was still playing at weddings & in restaurants, the big change in my musical life then was to be asked to play in the "pit" for West Side Story at the Regent theatre, a great musical written by Leonard Bernstein & conducted by a very likeable American "Dobbs Franks". It had a great social message & was one of the first shows to use multi instrumentalists. I played Alto sax, Flute, Picollo, Bb Clarinet & Bass Clarinet & got a great buzz being involved. After playing in the theatre for a couple of years, in 1962 I was asked to play 2nd Flute & Piccolo in the "Western Australian Symphony Orchestra" One of the Australian Broadcasting Commissions state Orchestras. This started me off on a real full time professional career with Professional Orchestras & I was lucky enough to play alongside a wonderful musical flautist "Owen Fisenden" & one of the nicest persons I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I learnt from Owen a lot about orchestral playing, how to play musically & stay with the ensemble, a great learning experience which started me on the path to understanding & enjoying the classical repertoire. Also played Tenor sax in a jazz group that involved some arranging as well for a radio program, all good fun. Just before the end of my stay in West Australia I was fortunate to be asked to fill in the second flute & piccolo position with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for six weeks starting in January 1963. This was due to the player that had the position had just had a car accident, sadly he never recovered enough to continue his flute playing. So I sat in the second flute chair for six weeks & was then offered the job permanently. I had a wonderful six & a half years playing alongside a magnificent Flautist "James Gleeson" & being involved in a variety of musical activities. The main thing of course was the orchestra which played a diverse repertoire of music. I was fortunate to be asked to be musical director with some arranging involved for a series of television programs on local television, also formed a jazz quartet playing standards & our own compositions for local ABC jazz programs. A wonderful & rewarding time, then disaster struck which was the start of the worst year in my whole life & subsequently put me out of the music business for nearly three years & probably contributed to the ultimate demise of my marriage.
----------------------------"This is how it went".-----------------------------